It is not just or proper that one should grieve over the misfortunes
of Jamaica with a stronger grief because her savannahs are so lovely,
her forests so rich, her mountains so green, and he rivers so rapid;
but it is so. It is piteous that a land so beautiful should be one
which fate has marked for misfortune. Had Guiana, with its flat,
level, unlovely soil, become poverty-stricken, one would hardly
sorrow over it as one does sorrow for Jamaica.
As regards scenery she is the gem of the western tropics. It is
impossible to conceive spots on the earth's surface more gracious to
the eye than those steep green valleys which stretch down to the
south-west from the Blue Mountain peak towards the sea; and but
little behind these in beauty are the rich wooded hills which in the
western part of the island divide the counties of Hanover and
Westmoreland. The hero of the tale which I am going to tell was a
sugar-grower in the latter district, and the heroine was a girl who
lived under that Blue Mountain peak.
The very name of a sugar-grower as connected with Jamaica savours of
fruitless struggle, failure, and desolation.
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